Days After The Fall
by Alioseven
Summary: Sherlock's ups and downs in Mycroft's home post-Reichenbach - this does follow the same characterisation as the When We Were Young fics but as it isn't Kid!Lock, it has been posted separately.


_There are days, sometimes, where sentimentality creeps into his veins and Sherlock finds solace in standing at his mark burial spot, just as morning arrives, listening to the chirp of the birds in the trees around him, feeling the air begin to warm and the sky turn from its predawn, marble glow into something bluer, clearer and brighter. On these days, these sentimental days, he feels the strongest pull to Baker Street and having to keep his distance is harder than ever. It's these days he's hungriest, filled with something unquenchable that begs and twists inside for the sting of a needle and the numb of a seven percent solution. It's on these days that Mycroft gets no peace – it's on these days that Sherlock is painfully human and Mycroft realises his brother never grew up, he just got older. _

"Sherlock, stop it." Mycroft groaned; his eyes were down at his desk as he worked at a mountain of dockets and sheets with an exquisite pen between his fingers. "I'm working." When the annoying tapping of Sherlock's brogues against the wooden arm of the chair he was draped in failed to stop, Mycroft dropped the pen to the desk, clasped his hands in front of his face and took a deep breath. "You're such a child," he scowled, realising Sherlock was staring at him with obstinate glee painted on his pale face. "When you're quite finished kicking your shoes against my chair…" he licked his lips, "I paid good money for that, so unless you want to replace it-," he trailed off.

"Can't," Sherlock sighed, his head falling back, "Dead men don't have money."

"Hmm," Mycroft rolled his eyes and pulled back his left sleeve, examining his watch. "Did you eat breakfast?" he asked. Sherlock had spent the entirety of the last three months since his 'death' in Mycroft's home and the elder man was doing his best to keep him occupied, to prevent the slip he knew only too well could come at any time. Sherlock didn't reply. "It's almost twelve, I can do us some lunch if you like?" he suggested, rising from his seat with knees that clicked and protested.

"Not hungry," Sherlock raised his head back, resting it into the crook of the back of the chair.

"Never are," Mycroft rubbed his hands across his tired face. "Tea, then?" he offered, walking around the desk and bending at the waist, wrapping his fingers around Sherlock's ankles, and pushed, preventing him from kicking his limbs back and forth. "You need to eat."

"My veins itch."

"Guilt and want, Sherlock; the vices of an addict, even those recovered," Mycroft straightened, relieved when Sherlock didn't resume his kicking.

"I need to see John, Mycroft."

Schooled in ignorance, Mycroft blinked twice. "Up, you need to eat." He ordered and stood with beady eyes on his brother until the curly man rose from the chair, a rabble of awkward limbs. "Kitchen," he directed. "And I expect you to eat everything I put in front of your, you're entirely too thin."

"You're getting fat." Sherlock remarked, preceding his brother from the study with all the grace of a fifteen-year-old, not yet accustomed to the lengthy limbs.

* * *

_There are days, sometimes, where Sherlock's body cannot contain the anger at himself, the tidal wave of grief and change that he's accustomed to – almost – but not sure of, not fuelled by the right line of thinking to be able to fully accept it. It's on these days that Mycroft doesn't allow Sherlock into the kitchen or the bathroom unsupervised for fear he would emerge bleeding. On these days, the dark days that are different to the sentimental ones in that they're more malevolent, Mycroft grows accustomed to the sound of his brother's near silent sobs, accepting them as usual in a macabre fashion. It's on these days that Sherlock wants everything he cannot have and cannot have the things he needs. These days usually followed nightmares of the night before, images of painful, disgusting torment in the curly-man's mind that saw him wake, sweating and screaming, unable to be placated by the brother who once cared for every ache or by the man he once called his friend._

"Please, Sherlock?" Mycroft knocked the bedroom door again, knowing it was futile.

"Go away."

There was a rasp to Sherlock's voice that Mycroft didn't like but the barrier of bedroom door made it impossible to do anything. "Let me in?" he supposed to Sherlock, "You shouldn't be on your own when you feel so…" So what? Down? Depressed? Depression warranted emotion and Mycroft was certain that, but for John, there was nothing below Sherlock's surfaces. He was turbulent waters and, as the only saying went, it was still ones that ran deeply.

"Piss off, Mycroft." Sherlock's retort was horrid and loud.

"I'm worried." He dared to admit. "It's days like these, Sherlock-,"

"Like what?" Sherlock roared through the heavy, dark wooden door but still refused to emerge, refused to allow Mycroft in.

"When you wallow, Sherlock; days when you become human and allow your guilt to drag you somewhere deep that I cannot reach and neither can your better judgement. Open the door and do not to anything stupid." Mycroft, for his part, kept his tone firm but calm. "Sherlock," he softened. "Don't hurt yourself."

"I need to see John, when can I come back?"

Licking his lips, Mycroft let go of his burdens and rested his head against the door, palms flat to it in an attempt to send his love for his brother through the panels. "When the time and day is right."

* * *

_There are days for Sherlock when a sort of mania takes hold. Mycroft sits back, shocked but outwardly calm, and watches as his brother paces and obsesses. In these days, Mycroft mostly sees the boy of old who has been reprimanded and cannot understand it. In these days he paces the living room, fingers twitching and knotting, knocking off of his thighs whilst – between unintelligent babbling of the inner workings of his mind – his lips and tongue pop in something remarkably like a vocal stim for it's in these days that Sherlock is young again, lost is his ability to conform and be like those around him, and he slips into habits teachers and therapists – and Mycroft – have worked hard to get him out of. _

"Sherlock, don't stim." Mycroft reprimanded, eyes fixed on his brother as long limbs carried him from one end of the lounge to the other and back again, fingers pressing together in a rhythmic pattern. "What's the matter?"

"I know that this isn't over," Sherlock spoke up, his thoughts spilling through vocally more than an actual response to Mycroft's question.

"What isn't over?" A frown twitched on Mycroft's brow.

"Moriarty! He isn't dead, I don't know how-," Sherlock's left hand rose and tap with a balled fist against his temple three, four, five, six times before Mycroft stood and reached up, fingers closing around Sherlock's wrist.

"Don't do that." He said gently, pulling Sherlock's hand away. "James Moriarty is dead, he shot himself, Sherlock. You were there and you saw it happen. He placed a gun in his mouth and he pulled the trigger. James Moriarty, is dead."

"No," Sherlock looked momentarily into his brothers eyes. "But he's not! He's too clever, Mycroft, he's too clever for it to just be over-," he extracted himself from Mycroft's hold and paced again, wall to wall, all but vibrating with the hum that escaped his chest between bouts of nonsensical verbal spillage.

"James Moriarty is dead," Mycroft repeated, lowering back into the fireside chair, worried eyes cast on his brother's moving form. "That much I am certain of."

_But for Mycroft, the worst days were the silent days, the days when Sherlock didn't leave the house nor did he want to. On these days he refused to eat, to speak, to drink, to move to even twitch his lips in distaste as Mycroft ran a hand through his hair or touched his arm. On these days, Mycroft wished he could allow Sherlock the freedom and resurrection he so badly wanted, **the return of Sherlock Holmes** that he knew he so desperately needed. But he wasn't ready for it and neither was John, neither was the world. There needed to be more time, there needed to be more grieving and breathing, returning to normality and getting it back on track and until Sherlock's days began to even out, until they stopped being so bipolar and unpredictable in their pattern that day would be far off. _

_But Mycroft hated the days, even as they became weeks and months, because the brother he knew changed, part of him died in that fall. Even after. _

* * *

**As it says in the summary, this follows the same characterisation of the Holmes boys as the When We Were Young Kid/Teen!Lock fics but as it's more canon than them, I posted it separately. Hope you enjoyed! **


End file.
